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Early election call shows Stephen Harper’s hubris

Harper’s early writ drop was a cynical political ploy — one that might backfire badly.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's hubris led him to “game the system” by calling for an extra-long, massively expensive election campaign, and to offer an insulting defence for his decision, writes Robin V. Sears.
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By Robin V. Sears

Tues., Aug. 4, 2015

“Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make proud.” — Sophocles

Canadians are a tolerant breed when it comes to indulging their political class. We permit them to tell tall political tales usually without retribution. We allow them to claim laughable political virtues, and only snicker occasionally. We even allow them to fling buckets of our money at us, and usually say, “Thank you.”

But there are lines you should not cross.

Conservative Leader Stephen Harper may just have crossed one. We do not often reward politicians who call unnecessary, sneaky or excessively short or long elections. Our “fair play” instincts kick in. As Jean-Pierre Kingsley, the former Elections Canada commissioner pointed out, Harper is “gaming the system.” Calling an election on a long weekend in midsummer is simply rubbing salt in an irritated Canadian vacationer’s wound.

Now calling an election longer than any in a century — and in our instant digital age, no less — while claiming you had to do it to keep the opposition from spending ever more taxpayer money on their “premature campaigning” would always have had a hard time passing the smell test.

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But when you pose, glaring, in front of your electorate as the man whose government has just spent hundreds of millions of public dollars on partisan TV ads pretending to promote public policy; and you have handed out more than a billion dollars mostly on your own people in your own ridings, all in the previous week; and you lavished even more billions on families with young children only days before that; and when your bizarrely stretched election gambit will double your spending limits — and therefore the amount taxpayers’ rebates will return to your party and your candidates’ coffers …

Well, that would have caused even the cynical ancient Greeks to lean back and bellow to the gods, “Hubris!,” and more deferential Canadians to raise their eyebrows in disdain.

Harper may succeed in his terrorism fear-mongering and his tall tales on the economy but I would not bet the rent on it. Canadian voters have smacked down many politicians for overindulging their partisanship in the form of tilted or unnecessary election calls. Ask David Peterson or Jim Prentice.

Here are two more reasons why, if the late lamented Senator Doug Finley, the Harper campaign guru for every previous race, were still calling the shots, he might have pushed back on Harper’s hubris.

First, as every seasoned political manager knows, each campaign day has two potential outcomes — triumph or disaster. Political campaigns are usually quite binary; if you are not winning you are losing. Shared victories are as rare on the hustings as they are on election night. More days, therefore, mean more potential for defeat.

But a second Finley caution might have been keen antennae about Canadians’ revulsion at excess. Many affluent Canadians who could drive a Ferrari, don’t; their mothers-in-law would be appalled. And it would be a very unwise Canadian corporation that staged a million-dollar birthday party for the CEO’s wife. A party that doubles the cost and the length of an election campaign, merely because they fear defeat without that thumb on the scale, risks being dinged for excess.

The Tories have given themselves twice as much money as their opponents to spend both nationally and locally across Canada. Most of the extra millions will be packed into prime time TV ads in the final 14 days of the election, at the climax of the baseball World Series, and at the start of the fall TV and hockey seasons.

Senator Finley would probably have worried that too many Canadians, pummelled by this one-sided nightly onslaught, might rise up and say, “Wait a minute! That’s too much. That’s not right.”

Harper had an opportunity to frame an election on his record in government, hitched to a program for the future. Instead he was trapped from the opening minute in his nose-stretcher about why he’s called the longest election campaign since Sir John A. MacDonald. For many Canadians his tough-on-crime, tough-on-terror and tough-on-public-servants mantra might have been persuasive one more time — despite the widening gap between his promise and performance on virtually every front.

Instead, his hubris led him to “game the system” with his massively expensive election campaign, and to offer an insulting defence for his decision.

And on Tuesday, the Mike Duffy trial will help him launch his second campaign week …

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP party strategist for 20 years.

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